I am afraid of the dark 
. Probably always will be, at this point 
what do you imagine is in the dark that might harm you?
Gonna win 'em all!
G..g..g..ghosts!
Nothing, really. If Satan and his demon army exist, then they would know better than to make their presence known to me, because if they did I'd suddenly be full on #TeamGod, and they would have no shot at my eternal soul.
Mostly, I'm just bothered by the combination of my senses and tired brain in low light environments. I often drift out of sleep and see vague shapes that my mind too hastily assigns meaning to, and it momentarily freaks me out. I recognize the error, but the physiological effects still take a while to unwind. I blame a vivid imagination and religious indoctrination.
I used to have a lot of problems sleeping without some light on, especially when I was about 10ish and I moved from my room upstairs on the 2nd floor where everyone else was and the room I had been in since I was born to all the way in the basement. I hated it and it freaked me out a long time being down there, cut off from everyone else. My new room was next to the storage room where the HVAC and the sump pump was so I could hear them run every now and then so there was all these weird noises I had to get used to. Plus the room had like a skylight pit with a ladder for me to escape in case of fire, but all I could think of was someone using it to get down into my room and offing me in my sleep. So I would turn on the bathroom light just down the hall a bit as a security blanket, and did that until I moved up to K-State, and that's when having a roommate, and just a tiny crack of light that came from under the door when I was in Moore, or the light from Royal Towers that shone into the racks when I was in my fraternity in the sleeping dorm, that transformed needing light from a security thing, to just a safety thing so I didn't bang my leg into a dresser or whatnot if I had to use the restroom at night. Really, what got me over the fear of needing a light was just someone(s) else in the room that I was sleeping in, just the feeling of another set(s) of eyes and ears in case something happened just puts my mind at total ease. Now when I sleep in my apartment, even though I am alone, I don't turn any lights on, usually the light from the next door apartments coming through the blinds is just enough to get me to the restroom if need be, but I don't turn anything on in my apartment. I guess it was a weaning process for me, but there is still some (indirect) light still there. Related, I still have to go through every room and closet and pull back the bath tub shower curtain and make sure all the doors are locked before I can actually get in bed and go asleep.
